No rest for BC after loss

There's no trip to Disney World on tap for the Boston College football team. After losing a winnable game on Saturday at home against Northwestern, the Eagles don't get a chance to sit back and beat up on some patsy to pad their record. BC must travel to Orlando to play Central Florida, which was 11-3 last year, next weekend

By Eric Avidon/Daily News staff

Milford Daily News

By Eric Avidon/Daily News staff

Posted Sep. 5, 2011 at 12:01 AM
Updated Sep 5, 2011 at 5:04 AM

By Eric Avidon/Daily News staff

Posted Sep. 5, 2011 at 12:01 AM
Updated Sep 5, 2011 at 5:04 AM

» Social News

There's no trip to Disney World on tap for the Boston College football team.

After losing a winnable game on Saturday at home against Northwestern, the Eagles don't get a chance to sit back, lick their wounds and beat up on some patsy to pad their record. BC (0-1) must travel to Orlando to play Central Florida next weekend, and while UCF may not have the reputation of fellow Sunshine State schools like Miami, Florida and Florida State, the Knights beat Charleston Southern 62-0 to open this season and went 11-3 a year ago, including a bowl victory over Georgia.

"They certainly are a very proficient football team, and certainly well coached," BC coach Frank Spaziani said yesterday during his weekly conference call. "We're going to have to be on top of our game down there for sure. They've got it going, winning (11) games last year and getting off to a (good start) this year.

"We have to take care of our own business, and we've got our work cut out for us."

In their 24-17 loss to Northwestern, the Eagles had a chance to tie or win in the final seconds, and were forced into that position in large part because of their own mistakes.

According to Spaziani, BC could have - and perhaps should have - beaten the Wildcats but lost because of sloppy and undisciplined play. And what bodes well for the Eagles is that much of what happened, the coach feels, can be improved.

"The things that happened, for the most part, they're correctable," said Spaziani. "They should be corrected this week. There's no excuse for why they happened, but the players now see it. There's a lot of positive to take out of this."

A prime example of BC's self-inflicted failure came mere moments into the season.

On the first play from scrimmage, sophomore quarterback Chase Rettig handed off to sophomore running back Andre Williams. Williams broke through the left side of the line, then bounced to the left sideline and raced toward the end zone. He gained 69 yards on the play, but was tackled four yards short of scoring.

BC seemed prime to take a very fast 7-0 lead on Northwestern. Mental mistakes on three successive plays, however, resulted in a field goal by Nate Freese. On the first play, Williams was dropped for a loss of a yard when the line failed to open space. Then came an incomplete pass. And on third-and-goal from the 5, Rettig completed a pass to senior Ifeanyi Momah, but the play gained only three yards - two shy of what was needed for a touchdown.

"When we get down there, we have got to get touchdowns," said Spaziani. "It's as simple as that. We need better execution. We had a couple penalties, we had some mental errors - and not only the quarterback. We had a couple of routes run wrong, we had somebody miss a block.

Page 2 of 2 - "It's one thing getting physically beat. It's another making the mental errors and not helping yourself."

But while mental mistakes can be corrected, a couple of concerns that lingered from the preseason were exposed on Saturday.

The offensive line lost three starters to graduation, and with senior Nathan Richman nursing a back problem throughout fall camp he played only part-time against Northwestern, meaning there were four new starters against the Wildcats. The group did a decent job protecting Rettig, but couldn't open many holes for Williams despite the fact that Northestern ranked 92nd nationally in rushing defense last year.

"We had concerns about that all preseason," said Spaziani. "We try to help ourselves in certain areas, and we might need to do a couple different things to help ourselves because we weren't able to help ourselves as much as we needed to."

And when BC was on defense the story was similar.

With three new starters on the defensive line, and then an injury to senior defensive tackle Kaleb Ramsey that ended his day in the second quarter, too many plays got past BC's front four and had to be cleaned up by linebackers Luke Kuechly and Kevin Pierre-Louis, who combined to make 34 tackles.

"That means a lot of people are getting through the line," said Spaziani. "They're making a lot of tackles, and a lot of it was because (the Wildcats) were getting to their level. We'd certainly like to cut down on that."

The Eagles would like a little while to address the mistakes that were made against Northwestern, perhaps iron out a few problems against an easy opponent. But they don't get that luxury of a virtual vacation from tough play.

They have to face a strong UCF team down in Orlando a mere five days from now, and The Magic Kingdom isn't on the itinerary.

(Eric Avidon is a Daily News staff writer. He can be reached at 508-626-3809 or eavidon@wickedlocal.com.)